


Follower

by babyrubysoho



Category: Mugen no Juunin | Blade of the Immortal
Genre: Angst, Emotionally Useless Anotsu, Feisty Uke, Gen, Introspection, Loyal Magatsu, M/M, Magatsu puts up with so much crap, The way Magatsu calls Anotsu danna in the original is too cute, Thoughtful Magatsu, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 12:56:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6855640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babyrubysoho/pseuds/babyrubysoho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Magatsu somewhat reluctantly comes to terms with just how far he's prepared to follow his boss.<br/>Because I cannot get enough of Anotsu as the ultimate Feisty Uke.<br/>Set somewhere around the events of Vol.23.</p><p>*Note: I am currently transferring 12 years’ worth of my fic from various murky corners of the Net to AO3. So if this looks familiar, that’s probably why. Either that or I’m just appallingly unoriginal…*</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter includes somewhat suggestive fanart (by me). Scroll down with caution!

 

 

 

I'm minding my own business, sitting close to the brazier and eating my lunch in this dark little room, with the rain hammering onto the wreckage of the _dojo_ above me, when I hear the door slide open. Someone comes in, but I don't bother looking round because after ten years I know the sound of his steps as well as my own. He sits down just behind me, as if he didn't want to be seen, which means there's something on his mind.

“Magatsu.” I prick up my ears, because there's an ache in that sound that I don't remember hearing from my boss before. He's been doing this more and more often lately; he tells Abayama and the Doc what we _need_ to know: about what's coming next, what enemies are up ahead; but it's me alone that witnesses his anger, his disappointment, his frustration; sometimes I think he talks to me like he would a dog, not expecting an answer, because he knows I'll never judge him or pity him. Yeah, it's me he talks to, and I've gotten to like it. Well. Me and one other; and this time it's about _her_ ; because what I'm getting from his voice is _pain_ , and I can imagine what his face would look like if I was insensitive enough to turn round right now. Her. Otono-Tachibana Makie. I sigh silently.

“I think she's going to die...”

And at that my eyes open wide and I do want to turn around, at the depth of the hurt in those words, but he puts one cold hand on my cheek quickly and stops me, as if he can only say these things to my back. I shake my head slowly, and he continues, almost talking to himself.

“This sickness, she...she's not fighting it. Because of _me_.”

Ah. This again. The eternal sticking point of what could be the most brilliantly matched pair of _kenshi_ in the country: she wants him to want _her_ , not her power, but as a _woman_. And maybe he does, but that awe and thirst for what she can do with a sword overpowers everything else for him. I get why he has so much trouble with this; women are damn complicated, and the last thing Anotsu Kagehisa needs, now that we're nearing the end, is more complication. I like Makie, as far as it goes, though I only see the cold face of her talent, none of the softness and emotion that my boss regards as weakness. But if she can't fight this for herself, whatever it is, then maybe she's right.

“It makes me so angry!” he continues, and I can tell he really is, his unseen gestures getting wilder as his hand accidentally knocks my back. “We need – I mean, _I_ need her.”

I don't think he understands this woman at all, despite how she loves him, despite the shared blood in their veins. When he talks like this I want to tell him that he and I get each other a lot better than he and she ever will. But because I _do_ know him, I keep quiet.

“But... _what can I do_?” I hear him whisper. I carry on shovelling rice, 'cos I can't think what to say, even though I can sense the bafflement and raw misery in his voice, something that falls on my ears uncomfortably. He must take my silence to mean 'nothing,' because he lets out a little sigh of frustration.

“If I let her go again...well, how _can_ I? The _waste_!”

I take this to be a rhetorical question, and nod with my mouth full, trying to follow my boss's complex train of thought. I think I get it, I've been around them long enough to see what they do to each other: he's looked up to her his whole life as the strongest, chasing her skill. And every time she throws away the sword, he's cut with it; because if she's weak, something in his head is telling him that he must be weaker, and that's one thing he'll never come to terms with. Never mind waste, never mind her desires; this is all about Anotsu Kagehisa. Not that I'm gonna tell him that.

I become aware of an expectant silence behind me, and realise it _wasn't_ a rhetorical question. I swallow a mouthful of fish, bite the bullet, and speak up, not looking back at him.

“Someday you're gonna have to. She's never going to be what you want. And you're never going to give her what _she_ wants.” I think I'm coming off pretty irritable, which I didn't intend. If I was talking to a woman I'd probably be in line for a slap right about now; but the boss is getting used to hearing stuff he doesn't want to hear, so there's just another sigh and the rustle of cloth brushing my back as he shifts position.

“Then I have to shoulder this alone,” he whispers, and his tone of voice is saying, _do you have any_ idea _how hard that is?_ Another silence; he's gonna start sinking into one of his deep, self-critical reveries any minute, I can feel it, and we have stuff to do this afternoon, so I'd better nip this one in the bud.

I put down my chopsticks, an irritated growl escaping me that I didn't mean to let out. Not at him, not really, though the complex tangles of his heart have always been a tricky area for me; but for the fact that we're having this conversation at all. I stare at the wall in front of me, and hear myself start talking.

“ _Danna_.” The sharp edge to my voice makes him start; he must have been well away. “I'm only ever gonna say this once, so listen good.” What am I about to say? The connection between my brain and my mouth is getting lost again. I sigh through my nose.

“I would do _anything_ for you.” Oh god, it's gonna be an embarrassing one this time. “I slipped up not long ago, I know it, but I came back to you. So from now on, no matter how crazy, no matter how cruel...I will do anything you ask me.” I sound pissed off, which doesn't really go with my sappy speech, but that silence is growing behind me and I can't stop trying to fill it up. I take a deep breath. “Everything I can do; everything I can be; it's yours.”

My face is glowing scarlet and I'm glad he can't see me; hell, I don't even get half the stuff I just said. But I do know that whatever it means to me, or to him, it's the truth; and I wonder for a moment how we got to this point, from that first day ten years ago when this kid knocked on the _Itto-ryu_ 's door and saw him, a cold, hurt, brilliant boy that I thought I would never get close to; maybe I knew it from that second: that I would follow him my whole life, even if my life ends up a damn sight shorter because of it.

Still no reaction behind me, and I might think there was no-one there at all if it wasn't for the frisson of tension in the air between my back and his body. I shrug and go back to my lunch; what the hell is he supposed to say to all that, anyway? Maybe it's enough that I've said it. But no.

“Magatsu,” he murmurs, voice quiet and cracking under the weight of everything he's holding up. Then I jump as a slender arm slides around my shoulder, the first time someone has touched me in this familiar way since o-Ren.

“ _Danna_ ,” I say softly, enquiringly. His arm tightens, fingers digging into me as he clutches my kimono, and I feel his smooth cheek against the back of my neck as he rests his forehead on my shoulder. I think I'm gonna panic a little now, but I won't let it show; if he needs to let go, so be it. He's leaning lightly against my back, and I feel the horrible tension slowly soften, and when it does he begins to cry, but silently, so that I only know it from the tremors of his body and the dampness on my neck.

I close my eyes, breathing slow and deep. I don't know if I can take this. And I get an inkling of what it must have been like for _her_ , the terrible pressure of being this man's support. But I just told him that I'd do anything. And I'm not as skilled as her, but I'm still _strong_ , strong enough for Anotsu Kagehisa to lean on if he needs to. I cling onto that thought, and I'd damn well better remember it, because the sensations of this moment are making me tremble, with fear, with something else, I don't know.

His breathing and the pace of his heart gradually slow to match mine, and for a few minutes that feel like forever we just sit here, leaning comfortably against one another; I'm still holding my rice bowl uselessly. Then I hear the unmistakable tread of that geezer Abayama in the hall outside, followed by my boss's determined sigh. A cold breeze on my back, and the door opens and shuts; and he's gone without my ever seeing his face.


	2. Complications

We arrive in the dead of night after a couple of hours' run through the woods away from the castle, and when we finally spot the hut, half buried in undergrowth in the hillside, I could just cry with relief.

“There,” Anotsu says, pointing, his narrow chest heaving and the fires of adrenaline still burning in his eyes. I skid to a halt.

“Fuckin'...about time!” I kick the little door open with some difficulty, wrinkling my nose at the musty smell; but they won't find us here tonight. He stalks in ahead of me and I elbow it shut again, plunging us into semi-darkness even on this moonlit night.

I plonk myself down on the dusty boards before my legs give out, and slowly fight to get my breath back, which I'm used to. Maybe I do get royally knackered trying to keep up with my boss each time, but at least I'm consistent. From behind me come the sounds of his tired breathing and rustling cloth as he takes off his bloody outer kimono. I rotate my right arm gingerly; feels like something's jammed in my back, probably from when I tumbled out of that net, and that's just typical of me, isn't it – I can get out of most scrapes, but it always ends up being in the most painful way possible, unlike Anotsu, who could probably fall out of a tree gracefully.

“God dammit.” I keep up a litany of complaints under my breath, exhilaration still racing through me. He laughs softly, and I hear a genuine satisfaction in his voice that's been absent for a long time. I look round as he kneels down behind me in his white underrobe, and his old smile of complicated triumph makes me grin back at him, because I haven't seen it for so long.

“You hurt?” he asks lightly, cutting into my muttering, and I grunt non-committally. Then his fingers are on my arms, running down my back briskly, thumbs probing around my joints and down my spine, making me squirm with discomfort. He leans forward to catch my expression as I swear lightly at him, and raises an eyebrow, pressing his temple against mine for a moment in a gesture of familiarity that I guess is meant to distract me as he manages to get a finger under my right scapula, finding the very spot the waves of pain are coming from. His hands and face are still stained with blood, but that doesn't matter because this kimono has had it in any case.

I yelp and he hooks one arm around my neck, holding me still; it feels like he's trying to pull my shoulder-blade out, but once he's done I realise the pain is gone and I can move my arm freely again. The boss certainly knows his anatomy, as well as he knows my long catalogue of injuries.

“Ahh...that's _much_ better.” I sigh with relief and he makes a satisfied little noise, but doesn't shift away, settling himself comfortably instead and moving his small hands more gently over my back. I recline a little into his touch; I like these rare moments of relaxation, the unencumbered intimacy that's the closest thing to affection either of us is likely to get these days.

“Tonight was fun, wasn't it?” he says gleefully.

“Uh-huh.” I can't remember the last time we really cut loose, or the last time I saw that phenomenal skill in action. It _was_ fun, despite him making me learn that long string of damn complex _kanji_ , the four of us together, the young heart of the _Itto-ryu_. But now it's just us two, and I can't help wondering about the others' chances, and whether they'll find us in Mito.

I wonder if he knows, somehow, what I'm thinking; he's stopped talking. He winds his arms around me familiarly, his cheek against my neck. Out of the corner of my eye I see the smile on his pretty face soften and sadden. I click my tongue disparagingly.

“We all did the best we could, Boss. No point dwelling on it, right?” His expression doesn't change, and I cover his hands with mine reassuringly.

“Every day...seems like there's less of us. Isaku and Doa, Baro...” He leans forward absently and I turn my head towards him; his elation is slipping away. “And I can't help thinking – what could I have done differently?”

My heart skips and I feel a pleasant little wave of giddiness as he speaks, his delicate mouth an inch from mine. This is what we've come to, in the last few weeks, this light intimacy that would border dangerously on flirting if I didn't know how fixated he is on Makie, if I didn't accept that for both of us this is just a substitute for something we don't have. It's always friendly, playful, the odd caress, his hands casually in my hair or around my neck when he has nothing more pressing to do. But we've been through a lot tonight, and it's only gonna get worse up ahead; and this wistful mood of his is doing something strange to me.

I reach up and touch his cheek softly, then untangle myself from his grip and heave myself to my feet, hearing him sigh behind me.

“We've got a few hours; I'm going to sleep. You should too.” I dig in a corner and pull out the clean haori I stashed there after we'd planned this escapade, then flop down on my back and pull it over me, shutting my eyes determinedly. Then there's silence, except the noises of the night-time woods around us and my own breath. I don't know if we'll ever be so peaceful again.

I'm on the edge of sleep when I feel the air move above me, but I don't open my eyes, just sigh to myself inwardly. A second later my haori is pulled aside; a soft weight settles on my torso, and an arm and a slim leg curl themselves around me. A sudden, sharp pang of something like desire shoots through me, and I open my eyes wide uncomfortably. My boss is lying with his head on my chest, looking completely unconcerned and quietly drowsy. I raise my head.

“ _Danna_. I'm trying to sleep.”

He yawns peremptorily. “I'm not stopping you.” Then it's all quiet again, but I'm hardly peaceful any more. His palm slides absently over the thin cloth that covers my chest. I wonder if he has any idea what he's doing; probably not, but I'm treading very close to the edge of a line that I didn't even know was there, and that for my own peace of mind I shouldn't want to cross. And with a shock I realise suddenly that I _do_ want to as, without me telling it to, my arm wraps companionably around his waist and draws him close.

Lifting his head, his fine, straight hair tickling my neck, he gives me a sleepy smile.

“I love this,” he murmurs simply, narrow eyes for once clear and content. Shit. _Shit_ , this is bad, he's speaking against my lips and for just an instant I know what Makie feels, what he makes her feel without intending it, through this thoughtlessness, and I don't ever want to end up like her but right now I can't help myself: I lean up the fraction of an inch it takes, my pulse hammering; and I kiss him.

For a long moment we're both motionless, he frozen in shock and me unable to move from the awful _wanting_ that has just slammed into me.

“Magatsu,” he whispers after what seems forever, and every movement of his mouth against mine sends a shudder of desire through my body, stronger than I've ever felt for a woman, and I have to let my head fall back to be able to think at all. When I look into his eyes the simplicity is gone, and I see a flash of bitterness that echoes the day I told him I was out of the _Itto-ryu_ ; but also a lingering, melancholy need. I'm mostly appalled at what I've just done, that I would do something to make him anything but happy; but a tiny part of me is exulting, because I made him feel something that has nothing to do with anyone else, that has focused his attention entirely on _me_.

“Magatsu...” He bites his lip, and I can feel his heart racing. “If you do this...it won't be a game anymore.” There's regret in his quiet voice, and passion. “Do you understand?”

I never realised I was so selfish. My hand rises to tangle in his hair, still dirtied with someone else's blood. “I don't want to hurt you,” I tell him earnestly. “I don't expect anything of you. No obligations. But...whatever you give me...I want it.”

The slow burn of relief and doubt on his pale face, and he smiles, and is suddenly so damn beautiful that I can't do anything but kiss him again. He responds this time, and his lithe body presses against mine tantalisingly, no longer the placid closeness of comfort but something much more risky.

I've only been thinking about this for the last five minutes of my life, but for those five minutes I had assumed that kissing Anotsu Kagehisa would be a battle. It's not. To my surprise and slight panic he lets go completely, letting me roll him over, my weight pinning him down as his soft mouth moves beneath mine. What do I do? He opens his arms to me expectantly. Shit. He wants me to lead this, and it comes home to me as never before how much he needs it, something to lean on, someone to shoulder the responsibility for even a moment.

“What're you waiting for?” he demands, a touch of the humorous irritability that we tend to use with each other resurfacing.

“Sorry, _danna_ ,” I murmur, blushing stupidly as he reaches up to push my kimono away from my shoulders. I wrap my arms around his slender waist, struggling with the knot of his obi and running my lips over his white skin, smooth and shivering and heavy with the intoxicating scents of sweat and blood and _him_.

“A- _ha_.” I let out a triumphant exclamation as I free the long strip of cloth and pull it from around his waist, my hands and mouth moving eagerly of their own accord to touch this man who has owned me for so long.

I undress him in that dark little room, still half unbelieving that we've come to this and that he's letting me do it. When I forget myself and call him by his given name he shudders, his tongue, his teeth nipping hungrily at my neck, his legs wrapped around my hips and clinging to me, so I say it again and he holds me tighter.

“ _Kagehisa_...”

When I finally enter him he grits his teeth with the pain; neither of us really has a clue what we're doing, I was as careful as I could be to make it easy for him, but I understand, as I gaze at his pale face all flushed and pleading, that I'm out of my depth. His narrow eyes are now wide, teeth biting down on his lower lip; a little whine of mixed apprehension and expectancy escapes him and he swears gently, shifting his narrow hips against my supporting hand. The tiny lift of his slender brows urges me forward; I push deeper and he grabs my face with both hands, kissing me roughly to suppress his moan. Running my hand up his back I feel him tremble, waiting for me to move further.

“You ok?” I mutter. My head's spinning with nerves and the utterly bizarre feeling of being so close to him. He nods quickly, his breathing rapid and shallow. I guess I've never been all that sensitive or anything, but I know my boss: he's afraid, and I could kick myself because I should have known it, should never have started this.

“I...I'm ok,” he assures me again, finely boned jaw clenched with the determination that marks a true leader. He flashes me one more complicated little smile, then gasps as I start to move, awkwardly at first because I'm scared of hurting him; until I remember just who it is I've got in my arms, and that he's stronger and more resilient than I could ever hope to be. He tugs me down and holds me close as I finally figure out what's working for him, and now the abandoned glow of pleasure suffuses his aristocratically pale skin, my own limbs dark and unrefined against his slender arms and legs.

“Faster,” he demands, giving me a crooked grin at my laboured breathing; I really gotta work on my stamina. I obey him, as I always have done, and he lets out an exhilarated little laugh that's half way between pain and delight and clings to me tighter, his fingers slipping against the sheen of sweat on my back until he digs his nails into my shoulders. I grimace in discomfort and reach up to grab his hands, pinning his wrists above his head before he does me some real damage; he's so perfect that I can't believe I never noticed it before, his hair, his face, his body all flawless except for the single solitary scar on his shoulder from his mishap in Kaga, the one sign that Anotsu Kagehisa has made mistakes. But I put all those dark associations from my mind, insofar as I still have a mind at all right now, and submerge myself in the preposterous pleasure of this hitherto unthinkable act.

When he climaxes he's completely silent, something I've never encountered before and that would make me worry if it wasn't for the expression on his face, for an instant so intense and vulnerable that it almost doesn't look like him, and I know that later I'll probably think I imagined it. But that one look sends me right over the edge, and as I finally get my release he drags me down and kisses me hard, and just as well because I was about to say something stupid at this ecstatic sensation that I never dreamed he could make me feel; and I understand that it's too late, as I kiss his damp face and pull away from him.

Too late for what? I wonder as the silence drags out, the two of us lying side by side under my haori. That single, bright second of insight has gone, and the gravity of whatever I was feeling is ebbing away in the usual afterglow of physical pleasure; but something ominous remains. He hasn't spoken at all since I let him go. I turn my head to stare into that strong little face.

“ _Danna_.” He slides his gaze towards me and gives me a raised eyebrow, and I can't work out if he's disapproving or just sleepy. “...You regretting this?” I ask awkwardly. He sighs, and really looks at me.

“It would have been better if you hadn't,” he says eventually, his quiet voice satiated and regretful, and I feel a quick stab of guilt. “But since you did, Magatsu...” He makes a face and opens his arms in a gesture that's somehow helpless. “...Hold me. Just for now.”

I shift over without hesitation and draw him into an embrace, and he clings tightly to me, but his touch now is full of complicated significance that makes me feel like I've lost something. I don't know what to say. My haori is slipping off his white shoulders, the dark fabric with his own insignia emblazoned on it, a sign of my enduring loyalty; and as I look at it I remember what's important; I remember my own convictions, and I immediately understand what he needs to hear.

“ _Danna_ ,” I say again, and he raises his head from my chest at the earnest tone of my voice. “Just listen for a minute, will ya?” He gives me his habitual frown. “You don't have to say anything,” I reassure him lightly, “but we gotta sort this out.” He turns over so that he can lean his forearms on my chest and look me in the face.

“I'm listening.”

“Good.” I scratch my head, and wonder how to phrase this. “Look. I'm never gonna ask you for anything,” I state. The frown deepens, puzzled, and I manage to flash a little grin. “I mean I don't _expect_ anything from you. I know I said I was only gonna say this once, but here it comes again: I'll do _anything_ for you, Boss, I'll follow you anywhere. I don't need a return.” His face is kind of a picture right now, relieved and perplexed and slightly incredulous, so I plough on. “Let's face it, I've been yours since I was a kid.”

“You never said,” he murmurs, slightly suspiciously. I shrug casually and brush the hair back from his face like I used to, as if it was an act of no significance.

“Yeah, well. I never had to. But you kinda look like you're worrying, so best to set you straight right now. Whatever you want to do with me, I'm good with it: no strings, pure relaxation and recreation, right?”

He looks at me hard, for a long moment, and I blush a little from the scrutiny but otherwise contrive to look nonchalant. And all the while I'm wondering if he'll ever appreciate it, the difference between me and her, between what she's asking of him and what I'm determinedly giving up even as I think this. Probably not. I resign myself to it gracefully.

My boss finally chuckles softly, a most welcome sound right about now, and shakes his head. He leans down and kisses me firmly, ruffling my untameable hair, which he knows I find annoying but right now I don't care because I'm so relieved.

“Thanks,” he says simply.

“Welcome,” I mutter. He lies back down then and covers us once more. I take him loosely in my arms and he sighs drowsily, and that sound of returned confidence and comfort swells my heart. I know that in a few short hours we'll be on the move again, chased or chasing, I can't quite figure out which any more but it doesn't matter. I've put myself in this man's hands, I've given myself up to him more than he's ever gonna realise, and that doesn't matter, either, or the fact that he's falling in love with somebody else; none of it matters. Before my eyes close in sleep I take one last look at him, silent and warm and peaceful in my arms.

It's enough. It has to be.


	3. Frost

He doesn't relax in sleep, either. Even lying in my arms he's tense, listening, though he's gathered safely to me as I watch the quiet woods that cradle us in this hollow. His feline eyes flicker behind their stripes of black lashes with every rustle of the bracken and I sigh, letting my back relax against the roots of this tree. It's not that he doesn't trust me, I don't think; we've been through enough together by now that he trusts I'll do my best. But he thinks, he _knows_ \- and to my annoyance I know it as well as he does – that once in a while my best isn't good enough.

It was since the Bakufu's treachery, since his illness, that he's got like this, on a constant exquisite knife-edge of tension; sure, he got some release the other day down in Edo – and there's nothing so captivating, not even the most graceful dancer in the capital, as watching Anotsu Kagehisa fight – but now we're back into it.

He moves sleepily as I shift, the increasingly ragged fabric of his travelling kimono making me very aware of what I'm doing, in its friction beneath my hands. But hell, I don't even _know_ what I'm doing, really, out in the wilds with my boss on our way North to god knows what end. Never thought he'd let me come to this, not while he's still raw from the pain of leaving Makie behind. But after everything that's gone on – him taking up with Kagimura, me leaving, finding him again, his crazy marriage, his illness, and then this betrayal by those government scum – the easy familiarity between us has intensified into something else.

“Magatsu.” He speaks without opening his eyes, and I twitch. “Stop staring at me.”

How can he tell? I wonder as I look away determinedly at the treetops. But these days, so many eyes are searching out the leader of the _Itto-ryu_ that he must have gotten ultra sensitive to each distinct gaze. And he knows me better than anyone.

He rolls away from me onto his side, his slim arms curled around his body, and I sigh ruefully. I'm tired, and I'm bored, and yet I still go on, though it's his fault we're out here instead of under a roof, even one of such dubious comforts as the flophouse we passed a few miles back.

“We can't stay there,” he'd said implacably, striding stoically past while I grumbled under my breath. “It's too close to the main road, too dangerous. And I'm not going to be the one to pick the fleas out of your hair.”

So here we are instead, and it's beginning to rain, warm and miserable, flattening my hair as the heavy drops increase. I curb my indignation with difficulty; but this _is_ his fault, and I deserve some kind of payback, right? Warily I lean down, registering how he tenses, and kiss him summarily where his smooth jaw meets the curve of his neck.

“Stop it,” he commands, quiet voice level and unamused as ever.

“No,” I say, taking his arm, but very gently, because I remember what happened between he and his cousin, though he never mentions it, and I can't predict how he'll react even though we've been through this lately a dozen times. He seems even more deceptively delicate in my grip than before, his limbs so slender, the graceful line of his neck as he turns his head away just like a woman's. To me, since everything went down in Kaga, my boss has become like an icicle: cold, beautiful, sharp enough to pierce you through if the time ever comes when he breaks and falls from that lofty ambition he's got going. And fragile, so I'm afraid that any attempt to melt him might make him shatter before me instead.

Shit. When did I start thinking this kind of high-flown crap? It's just him, this man I've known for years, just a guy with a lot of complications. I can deal with that. I've got none myself and I have the good luck to know it, I'm as simple as old Manji, really. And now I know what I want.

I turn him towards me and those narrow eyes open in annoyance and ambiguity as I kiss his closed mouth and wait to see how he's gonna play it this time.

“Magatsu,” he warns, speaking my name in his low voice that can command me so easily in everything but this.

“This is what I want.” I sound like a stubborn kid, which to him, genius leader of a desperate rebellion, I guess I am. He sighs wearily and I kiss him again, his long hair full of pine needles and catching in my hands.

“I should never have let you start this,” he says coldly when I let him speak. His hands are by his sides, doing nothing.

“Well, Boss, you did.” It's starting to rain harder now, and though we're partially sheltered by the branches of this tree the water falls on both of us, dampening his pale face, and I remember his angry tears on the day this all began: something I know he'll never let me see again.

I lean down to him once more and, after a while, what with the quiet and the dark, he begins to melt the way he always does, reluctantly, softening into pliable fluidity with the raindrops. Hah. I knew he'd come round in the end. His lips and his limbs part resignedly and I have a hard time engaging him, though I can feel myself blushing like an idiot at what I'm being permitted to do. But when I speak his given name it's as if something's snapped, I'm overwhelmed by him and kind of pained, his mouth and strong little hands almost vicious with passion. Sometimes I feel like the only reason I'm allowed to do this is so he can vent his frustrations and his stifled fury at the world on my dogged, much-injured body; he knows there'll be no repercussions, no questions or explanations from _me_.

Because I get why he's hurting; he thinks I don't but it's not hard to figure out, even for me. It's not just his physical injuries – I can feel the raised skin of the scar on his shoulder beneath my fingers, the wound he allowed that stuttering sonofabitch to give him, but that doesn't bother him much – it's something else that he won't put in words.

Fact is, we used to have different dreams, he and I: getting one over on those craven, ineffectual, murdering _samurai_ , that was all I cared about. And the boss did the same, but it was because he wanted back _into_ the hierarchy, just on his terms. The gap between us just got wider after he met Kagimura, he was close, _so close_ to getting his dream, his long-pondered ambition; I know what he planned, to become part of that aristocratic society again and change it for the better coldly, ruthlessly, and he was willing to lose me to do it. He knew I couldn't knuckle under to the Bakufu.

And then suddenly this fucking _nightmare_ of betrayal! I could've warned him it would end up like this, but I doubt things would have turned out any different. He's not the kind of guy to let something like that, hell, _anything_ stop him, that's why I follow him, that's why...But it woke him up from that dream, and he didn't like it. And now he's on the edge, no more stopping the decline of the _samurai_ , no more calculation; just rage, he's teetering on the very brink of letting go and exploding into furious, righteous _revenge_ , and I'll go along gladly. I guess it was a bitter awakening, though, that he needs to cling to me to endure it.

“Magatsu,” he snaps, his small, sharp teeth digging into my neck and making me yelp, “stop _thinking_.” Not really one of my strong points, to him.

Kagehisa disapproves of kissing, at least that's what he keeps saying. I think he sees it as some odd, foreign, slightly distasteful peculiarity. Me, I'm a farmer, I'm not proud about stuff like that, especially given what some of the other _Itto-ryu_ get up to in their spare time. He _says_ he doesn't care for it. But you'd never know it now, his mouth slipping commandingly against mine, his hands cradling my face, cool against my skin in a way that gives me the shivers. Then his arms are around me, tightly and painfully as ever they were, and _this_ is what I can't get enough of more than anything else, this closeness, and I don't give a shit _how_ weird it is, he's intoxicating.

“Magatsu, Magatsu...” he whispers, letting go of thought himself, a soft song of dismay and awkward pleasure as my hands wander more audaciously. His breath shudders in my ear and his fingers slide beneath my kimono to brush the nape of my neck, one slender leg rising to press against my hip. I'm cold, I'm very close to soaking, something in the undergrowth is prickling me and my ribs are aching from my fall off that damn bridge a while back; but even if someone wandered up the hill and saw us right now I wouldn't want to stop.

I don't know what's gonna become of us, all of us, with Kagehisa the way he is now, so brilliant and enraged. It didn't use to bother me, so long as I could do my thing to the best of my abilities. He's been a marked man as long as he's been on this path, I know it and he knows it, and I used to accept it. But the more he's in my arms the more I'm afraid for what might happen to him, as if _I_ could do anything about it.

Thinking of it, unable to _stop_ thinking after all, I pull him to me and hold him convulsively, more tender than I've ever been with a woman, knowing he'll be angry but I don't care. His breath is warm against my neck for a moment and then he's shoving me away, so strong he is in that small frame.

“Enough,” he mutters, panting, his narrow eyes gleaming and his pretty, aristocratic face flushed in a way that makes me want to jump him again.

“ _Danna_ , I -”

“No.” His hand is resting on my chest, holding me off, and even that simple touch sets my pulse hammering. I squirm uncomfortably. “Go to sleep, Magatsu. I'll watch.”

I snort dismally. As if I'll sleep. I look up at him from the flat of my back, his profile dimming in the gathering dark. He's looking away at the trees, his fine jaw clenched; but the line of his body is softer now, less tense, as if I've taken it all into myself. I sigh resentfully, and shut my eyes.

I do sleep, in the end. When I wake up the morning sun is rising above the hill, shining palely through the skeletal trees. The weather's turned and I taste the tang of winter; my damp clothes are shimmering and crisp with a light covering of frost. But I'm warm. His limbs are curled around me peacefully, his face set in sleepy neutrality, poker-straight hair falling softly across his cheek. I look down and groan to myself as it finally hits me. Fuck. _Fuck_. I love this man. _I_ love a man who can't even cope with the adoration of a beautiful woman; what the hell do I do with this?! He opens his eyes, the colour of dark honey in the sunlight, and for a moment there's no reserve, just his naked, bitter, idealistic self.

Then I hear the crack of a branch and a far-off cough beneath the birdsong, quickly stifled, and warning bells go off in my head and the hair on the back of my neck stands up. He blinks, in an instant is on his feet, every nerve alight, and once more my leader stands before me and I feel that awe again, smothering my other ill-considered emotions. He jerks his head and I follow like the dog I am, yearning, my hackles raised.


End file.
